‘The Wrestling Hipster’ is a column dedicated to a deeper, enlightened perspective on professional wrestling for people who think having an opinion about pro wrestling makes you deeper and enlightened. If you’re one of those people who reads the italicized disclaimer, the headline is unnecessarily confrontational on purpose to make people who don’t read italicized disclaimers mad. Do not take his seriously, but obey every word I type.

WWE Money in the Bank 2014 is on Sunday, and because I want your web traffic, here is web content.

The Money in the Bank briefcase was created back in 2005 as an excited, unprecedented way to instantly elevate a superstar and get people talking. Nine years later it’s pro wrestling’s best way to give a championship run to someone who doesn’t deserve it. John Cena’s got the belt. Think ZACK RYDER should be champion? Give Zack a win in a PG prop gimmick match where he doesn’t have to pin anybody, have him pin Cena only after Cena’s been excessively beaten up by wrestlers that actually matter and then NEVER TAKE THE NEW CHAMPION SERIOUSLY BECAUSE HE’S A COWARD. Rinse, repeat. Twice a year if possible. Nobody gets anything out of it, but hey, when Zack Ryder goes back to the indies he’s “former WWE Champion Zack Ryder.”

Note: lol

By my count there have been 14 cash-ins of the briefcase between 2005 and three days before Money in the Bank 2014. You can find 3-to-6 barely-updated lists of cash-ins from Bleacher Report at the top of your google search results for Money in the Bank, or you can read an indisputable, definitive ranking of those moments from the only voice on the Internet that matters: me.

Or Dave Shoemaker. But Shoe’s busy podcasting with Bruno Sammartino and Jesus and I’m sitting at home in my underwear, so here’s mine. Years indicated are the years when they won the briefcase, not necessarily when they cashed it in.

It’s less about Sandow not winning and more about how Sandow didn’t win. Cena had a legit elbow injury. He lost the WWE Championship to Daniel Bryan at SummerSlam and took some time off, which in John Cena language means “miss a two months and immediately win the World Heavyweight Championship in my first match back to apologize to myself for leaving.” Cena wrestled Alberto Del Rio at Hell in a Cell, a match build around Del Rio — a guy who destroys arms FOR A LIVING — destroying Cena’s already injured arm. He mauls it for 20 minutes, leading to Cena being momentarily totally fine and hitting Del Rio with an Attitude Adjustment, a move that requires arm strength. He also hooked the leg with his bad arm.

The next night on Raw, Damien Sandow attacked Cena, relentlessly assaulting the now SUPER injured arm with his Money in the Bank briefcase. He cashed in, then spent several minutes continuing to hurt the arm. He smashed it into the ring post. He tossed Cena into the barricade arm-first. Cena, now severely handicapped and beaten within an inch of his life, became totally fine and Attitude Adjusted Sandow to win. Gutwrenching. Here’s more on that if you have the stomach for it.

13. 2012 – John Cena cashes in on CM Punk (and loses)

See that hilarious picture up top? That’s John Cena winning the Money in the Bank briefcase in 2012, the “worst year of his career.” The year he main-evented WrestleMania against one of the biggest WWE stars ever (The Rock), beat Brock Lesnar, won Money in the Bank and only missed out on winning THE OTHER GUY’s Money in the Bank briefcase at TLC because his girlfriend turned on him. He won the Royal Rumble in January of 2013 and went on to win the WWE Championship from The Rock in another consecutive WrestleMania main-event. But you know, horrible year.

The actual horrible part of the year was his attempt to cash in his briefcase. John was attempting to be noble by announcing the title shot ahead of time, because hell, he’s John Cena. What’s he gonna do, lose? He challenged CM Punk to a championship match at Raw’s 1000th episode and lost, but only by disqualification (Big Show interfered), and only after he’d clearly, cleanly had the match won twice. He had a pinfall win with the ref down following an Attitude Adjustment, and Big Show waited until Punk was about to tap out to the STF before he jumped in.

A briefcase cash-in with a ref bump and a DQ finish leading to a series of follow-up championship matches and him winning the belt anyway. Okay.

12. 2011 – Alberto Del Rio cashes in on CM Punk

Remember the Summer Of Punk? Back in 2011, CM Punk became a megastar with a quasi-shoot promo on Raw that made him a household name. People were talking about him on sports radio, wondering with childlike glee if his actions were part of the show or for realsies. It was followed up with one of the best WWE Championship matches EVER in front of an unforgettable, hot-as-lava crowd at Money in the Bank 2011. Punk won the belt from John Cena, blew a kiss in Vince McMahon’s face and left the company with its most prestigious prize. People look back on that month and a half of Punk like they’re remembering their favorite Christmas.

Do you recall how Punk’s title reign ended? In his next match. With Triple H as the special guest referee.

Punk came back to face (who else) new “also” WWE Champion John Cena. He won and unified those titles, but WHOOPS, in stumbled in Kevin Nash to powerbomb him and let The Least Interesting Man In The World Alberto Del Rio steal the newly-won double-title with a Money in the Bank cash-in. Punk got into a feud with Triple H (which he lost) and Cena easily defeated Del Rio for the championship he barely deserved at the next pay-per-view. The next time somebody tells you to “wait and see” where an angle goes, wait and see a f*cking Wikipedia page and use basic human memory.

Bryan overcomes the Odds Overcomer and wins the WWE Championship, but WHOOPS, Triple H pedigrees him and lets The Least Interesting Man In The Continental United States Randy Orton steal the newly-won title with a Money in the Bank cash-in. Bryan began feuding with Orton in a series of matches he either lost or had reversed/erased from the history books after he won with no payoff until EIGHT MONTHS LATER when he officially, for-real won the championship. And, uh, then he got his neck broken and had to give up the titles.

Meanwhile, John Cena would return in TWO months to easily defeat Alberto Del Rio for the World Heavyweight Championship. I am not copy and pasting these entries, I swear.

Brandon, while reading through your article (which, as always, was awesome), the part about Cole yelling THAT SICK PIRANNA! on repeat made me think about the leaked, unedited Smackdown! stuff from a short while back, where you get to hear the announce team talking through their headsets to the backstage crew. At one point, Cole asks if they want him to keep saying this one thing (I can’t remember what it was, but something we would normally hear him say on repeat and all be STFU ALREADY COLE!!!) and they tell him yes and says, like, “Are you sure? Because I’ve been saying it a hell of a lot already.”
Anyhow…not to hijack the comments, but it’s just an interesting side-note considering how fans can often clearly remember the announcer’s call during some of those really epic moments, and where those phrases actually come from.

That Ziggler cash-in is a personal favorite simply due to the reaction of the crowd, and the looks on everybody’s faces. You can see as Ziggler, AJ and Big E are walking down to the ring, that they know how huge of a moment this is, and they then proceed to have the best 3 minute wrestling match in history, and Ziggler has an absolutely incredible moment. I really get the chills every single time I watch this video, it has never gotten old. The moment his music hits is just insane on every level, and I love it. I was part of the group in my section at Mania 29 that kept chanting for Ziggler after Del Rio beat Swagger, but it would have been anti-climactic at that point. They gave him the perfect moment waiting until the next night.

As much as I LOVE that red-hot Post-WM crowd, I think the most underrated part of Ziggler’s cash-in was how ABSOLUTELY JACKED he was about it. I seriously get chills watching him stomp to the ring with PURPOSE in his eyes and then storm the ring and go “YOU! OUT! YOU! OUT! YOU! THIS! NOOOOOOW!” and slaps the briefcase like he’s slapping his leg for a dropkick and the crowd erupts AGAIN.

@hobbitcore absolutely. And him holding the belt repeatedly yelling “This is my time now! My time!” is just so great. Credit to Del Rio for putting on a hell of a performance and selling the shit out of his ankle injury. I recently watched Payback 2013 for the first time, and Del Rio’s heel turn during the match against Ziggler is so overlooked, probably because his title reign fizzled out shortly thereafter, but that was a very good match between the two of them.

Totally think Ziggler’s should have been higher. Swagger had just obliterated del Rio, and you could feel the crazy tension in the crowd when Ziggler’s music hit. And the eruption of sound! Rolls out looking like a total badass with the hottest girl and the coolest friend in the world. Has a superb little match full of tension and drama, where it looked like anything could happen… and then wins! The crowd going nuts (and deservedly so) and man… that was epic.

Reading this list, I realized that I didn’t remember most of the pre-2012 cash-ins (and actually didn’t see some of them, because a few took place on PPV during a time I wasn’t able to watch every event).

I can remember jumping up and down, fist-pumping, and all that when Punk cashed in on Edge (the anniversary of that event is this coming Monday, by the way). That had been a terrible day for me, because I friend had brain surgery that day, and I still hadn’t heard how she was doing. So I was just watching Raw to get my mind off of that. So Punk’s win that night meant a lot to me. It was a huge release.

And as far as the atmosphere of a cash-in goes, I don’t know if anything will ever top Ziggler’s. Talk about a magical moment. As Matt Steele says above, I still get chills when I watch that. Just the crowd’s explosion when Ziggy’s music hits is phenomenal. And AJ’s reactions… wow.

I was pretty excited when Miz cashed-in too, because it felt like the ‘little guy’ was getting a chance at the top spot. And I guess that’s what is was, but holy crap did he lose all of the good will people had for him.

WWE killed the Miz. Buried by having to feud with Lawler, then blaming him and R-Truth for not being able to carry HBK and HHH through their weak imitation of DX and the complete mismanagement of his face turn.

I’m also glad Brandon hasn’t forgotten that moment on Smackdown when Bryan proclaimed that he was going to wait until Wrestlemania to cash in so that he’d be in the MAIN EVENT and win it fair and square. Of course, World Title + Wrestlemania =/= Main Event back then, but rather Opening The Show! Which he did end up doing, but in another way, that made his career even better in the long run. But most people forget that small detail that he originally announced he was cashing in at Wrestlemania.

Ziggler’s cash-in was definitely my favorite ever. I didn’t sit down throughout that entire match, I just paced around the room thinking they better not make him lose this. AJ and Big E having tears in their eyes after just mad it 1000 times better.

And I’m glad you pointed out the fact that everyone tries to copy off the “If ______ wins, we riot” sign. It’ll be like a 12 year old in Nebraska holding up a sign threatening to riot. No kid, you won’t. Those people that night would have torn that arena apart soccer-riot style. Part of me almost wishes Cena would have won just to see the aftermath

I thought the Ziggler cash-in would be #1. Glad you gave it to RVD though. That shot of Cena after he comes thru the curtain, framed by the outstretched arms of a guy giving 2 middle fingers … that’s me! Those are my middle fingers!

In regards to the list, I would love to see Ziggler’s cash in higher, but it didn’t have as big of an impact on either character or storyline as the cash ins above it. That being said, that was the hottest crowd there had been in awhile.

I would’ve had Ziggler at #1 (just rewatched and teared up all over again), and Edge 1st one at #2 but very solid reasoning for putting RVD at #1.

Cena needed something like this to be MADE. He won the title over a year prior, but things like Angle eating his ass alive (and being cheered for being better and a badass to boot), and HHH surprisingly putting him over via an unbelievably shitty STF (after HHH killed his wrestling ability) weren’t exaclty making him the ace of the company.

This was also the first Cena match that delivered as a wrestling match that told a great story where he wasn’t being carried by props or a better worker. He took the job as the top guy with EVERYTHING he did in this match.

Oh man Edge’s cash in was still one of my favorite moments of all time. It was instant gratification after he just went through Carlito and Masters in basically an Elimination Chamber handicap match and then Vince and Edge are all LOLNOPE. The best.

Shameless plug, if anyone is at all interested on hearing some more thoughts on MITB and predictions and what not. Here’s my blog.

@TheRazz The dejected look on the bloodied face of John Cena, when he hears Vince making the announcement about Edge cashing in is one of my favorites. It brings to mind the look on Cena’s face as he’s sitting in the ring while CM Punk starts up his infamous pipe bomb promo. When Cena over-acts, it’s horrendous, but when he can tap into real emotion and frustration, it’s wonderful to see.

I’m a huge original ECW mark and when they went under I didn’t follow wrestling for nearly a decade. This was my first time seeing the RVD/Cena match. Wow, that was awesome. I can’t express how much I loved ECW crowds and going to live events. Awesome stuff.

It’s interesting — regular, guy beats another guy in a scheduled match title changes happen almost exclusively on PPV these days. For a whole generation of fans who only watch Raw/Smackdown, Money in the Bank cash-ins are pretty much the only way they’ve seen the title change hands. For the average 13-year-old fan, the title only changes hands in these minute-long, super dramatic flukes and on PPV matches they don’t see.

Since the invention of PPV, though– except for a the garbage years in the Attitude Era when Rock and Mankind traded the belt back and forth every damn week– it’s always been like that. Hogan certainly never defended the title on TV, much less *lost* it on TV (I don’t know, if he did defend it on TV, it would have been on Saturday Night’s Main Event, I guess).

Someone within WWE would probably argue that that makes the Network feel more essential– ‘Wanna see the WWE WHC defended? Better get the Network.’

@Pencil-Necked Geek nailed it right on the head. It seems like they’re slowly learning their lessons with the IC and US title belts, where they’re a) not having the champs lose every non-title match, and b) are actually defending the belts on PPVs and on RAWs and having clean finishes. I’m mainly thinking of Sheamus beating Cesaro at Payback, and Barrett beating Ziggler on RAW. If they had more meaningful title defenses on Main Event or PPVs, I think people would watch those matches on the Network, for sure.

Oh hell, I’ll say it: Thanks for writing this so I can admit that I used to like The Miz. Bad-ass entrance music and so simply, wonderfully obnoxious. Him chastising the crowd for its swooning the week after The Rock’s first return was glorious.

I’m gonna echo your sentiment and say how much I loved The Miz back then. He was the guy who was told he was never gonna make it and never amount to anything and when he did, he went and rubbed it everyone’s face and shoved it down their throats. It was tremendous. His cash in was so amazing for me because it was a moment that said “if you work hard and improve and get good at what you do, you can achieve your goals.”

@Goat Faced Killer @Future @JJay @killermothfan33 Myself and 2 friends attended the Royal Rumble in 2011, and we really, really debated going shirtless and painting “M” “I” “Z” on our chests. Then we realized we were in the upper section nowhere near any cameras, and that it was 15 degrees in Boston that night. But that’s how into The Miz we were at the time, and how awesomely obnoxious his character was.

Yeah, that Ziggler cash-in was red hot, but RVD/Cena was definitely the best. I tried so hard to get tickets to One Night Stand, including going over to the Ballroom and no one was even scalping any. It was insane…

So I know I’m the only one that actually enjoyed Mr. Kennedy around the time he won the briefcase, and I think he could have been a fun WHC. Sucks he got hurt, and they panicked and took the case off of him.

I’ve always always always wanted a heel or one of the millions of babyfaces that “bends the rules” be stuck in one of those situations where he’s just been through hell and the guy with the suitcase starts the match, then immediately kick him in the balls for the dq or roll out of the ring for a count out. I mean Cena lost his chance in a DQ finish against CM Punk so clearly it’s a straight up normal match.

@Kiposaurus That would have been a better way for Sandow to lose, honestly, because it would be clear that he “won” the match but didn’t with the title as a complete fluke, it would continue the tradition of “good guy” John Cena being a complete asshole, and it would have spared Sandow from destroying Cena for 10 minutes only for it to be completely no-sold and negated by a clean win via AA.

I agree with so much of this. I was really worried while I was reading that the “Wrestling Hipster” would hate RVD v. Cena. Afterall, what was it’s long term effect?

I might have had Orton’s cash-in much higher. As a moment, it sucked. But it set up Bryan’s Wrestlemania march, gave us the best version of Triple H we’ve maybe ever had and set up a brilliant rise for Bryan.

I personally loved the moment of Bryan beating Cena, but the whole time I knew Orton was coming out. The possibility literally was not mentioned once during the SummerSlam broadcast, so I knew it was happening that night. I thought Triple H turning on him made it better, because Triple H the face Authority figure was horrible. Sure, he didn’t commit to being full-on heel with it until about January, but still, Orton cashing in was such a deflating moment, I actually found it humorous and enjoyable.

It was a shame that Kennedy never cashed in because the guy was on fire at that time in his career. The promos he cut in his Undertaker feud really made you feel like he could be the next ‘guy’.
Although since he ended up failing wellness tests and became a liability in the ring I suppose what ended up happening was for the best.

I think I watched the Ziggler cash-in about 20 times the week it happened, and I wasn’t even a huge Ziggler guy. Listening to the crowd, you’d think these were the biggest stars in the world. You’re right about how much AJ and Langston play a role in getting everything over … all three come out with their game faces on and it rules SO HARD.

Also, it’s a shame the linked video for Edge’s first cash-in doesn’t show the part where he hands the briefcase to Vince … to me, that really showed the significance of what was happening, both on the show and for Edge’s career.

1. Thank you again for reminding me that 2010-2011 Miz was amazing and I miss him dearly.
2. The Cena-RVD match was freaking amazing, and I remembered as a kid how much I loved the whole build-up between the two. I was unashamedly both a Cena fan (05-08 Cena was the best Cena after 03-04 Cena) and an RVD fan (loved the guy until his TNA and recent WWE runs).

For Me
1) Ziggler – Gave the fans what they wanted, but his reign was too short. I will never understand their disdain for Dolph as the top guy. Dolph-AJ-Big E were a great team.

2) The Miz cash in was during my dark period. Going back and watching the Nexus era, the f-ed up big time not putting the belt on Barrett. The Miz win was awesome because of his emotions and the pissed off little girl.

ADR was fantastic in #6, and one of the biggest reasons I enjoyed the shit out of that match. The heat for Ziggler was tops, but when ADR kicked out at 2.9999 seconds and then hit that beautiful hang-time kick–that really raised the drama tenfold.

I put this almost on par with the Clash XVII US Title switch as my favorite of this style.

the sandow and cena ones are indeed just the most frustrating thing ever.

ziggler’s one is just the most bitter sweet video for me now. I was tearing a bit, and fighting to not break in crying from watching it. makes me miss AJ, miss when I cared about ziggler, miss when WWE cared about big E, miss del rio and ricardo’s friendship and when I used to enjoy ADR’s matches every week, see how the announcers can also be awesome and not only once in a lifetime or only for cena, and just plain out see how the IWC crowds are seriously the best crowds and best wrestling fans no matter how much they hate of wrestling stuff because they truly CARE about wrestling.

other than bryan’s cash in being #2, this list is perfectly the same as mine. I only pushed down bryan’s to #6 and left the others up one slot.

Not that I don’t totally agree with RVD being #1 (ONS 06 is one of the few pre-WWE Network PPVs I actually watched live and got CHILLS watching the crowd shit in Cena’s cereal) but the thing that always really bummed me out about this was that he needed freaking Edge to win the match because John Cena. It’s hard to complain TOO much about it and I totally chanted “THANK YOU EDGE” at my computer screen along with the crowd but just…ugh…

@hobbitcore least he didn’t pin him right after the spear. He hit him with the Frog Splash to really kill him dead, and that’s what won it.

The finish of that match always reminded me of Eddie beating Brock in 2004. It required a Goldberg run-in (which is NEVER mentioned these days), AND Eddie needed to DDT him on the belt, PLUS a Frog Splash to put Brock away. And in an incredibly annoying fashion, Tazz is shitting on the win on commentary, constantly saying, “But Eddie cheated!” as he’s celebrating. This is the babyface color commentator, calling out the babyface challenger, whose gimmick is that of a LIAR, CHEATER, STEALER, for having to “cheat” to beat Brock Lesnar. Still annoys me to this day when I watch that match.

The Wilmington, DE, kid in me who spent his high school years watching ECW on public access, still has trouble believing they put Rob Van Dam over Jesus H. Cena at the Hammerstein Ballroom of all places. It was just so perfect. The disgusted shirt throwing is one of my all-time wrestling fan highlights. It’s everything I love about interactive crowds and a standing reminder that there’s more than just snarky internet comments to tell them how sick you are of being spoonfed hero faces.

…And then I remember that this is 8 years ago, and somehow the John Cena hatred that at this point has to have manifested itself as a tumor somewhere in his body has yet to be used in a monster heel turn. 8 years and not one “Die…..Rocky….Die” promo. HOW!? It’s like creative’s honoring Cena by no-selling the audience. You have to think even Cena would enjoy the change of pace at this point.

To be fair, there was one kid at ONS that was cheering for Cena. So, it was more like 99.99999% against John Cena. I remember laughing every time Cena would his a move and you can see the kid jumping up and down while the rest of the fans were ready to go into a fit of rage thinking the end was near for RVD.

I’ll give you your arguments on 5-1 (though I’ve got a bit of a complaint on the RVD/Cena thing, but I’ll get to that), but the Ziggler/Del Rio cash-in was not only the best cash-in, but one of the best championship matches of the century. In the span of 3 minutes, it packed in more drama, more legitimately compelling near-falls, and more passionate crowd emotion than every Cena, Orton, Big Show, etc match combined.

Now, onto that RVD/Cena thing, yes, it was the first notable time in which Cena had to confront the fact that he’s not a universally beloved comic book hero, but for that particular crowd on that particular night, their Cena hate had much more to do with the fact that he was representing the WWE rather than the fact that he was John Cena. Today’s crowds may not be as coordinated and adorable as that ECW crowd, but their loathing of Cena is based entirely on the fact that he’s John Cena; that crowd hated him because he was the WWE’s guy in their backyard.

Punk’s cash-in on Edge, while not ‘honourable,’ made sense for a couple of reasons…

1) It was fitting for Edge, the master of the cheap on-the-spot cash-in
2) Edge had just been drafted to Smackdown and that was his last RAW. In fact, just before Batista came out to destroy him, Edge was gloating about stealing the title and taking it to the other show. So outside of a PPV, this was Punk’s “last chance” at the world title.

It looks like you ranked these cash-ins taking into consideration whether how the build-up was, how well booked they were as Mr. Money in the Bank and how the title reign that resulted from the cash-in was. I wouldn’t take ANY of that into consideration if I was ranking it.

If I rank them purely for the entertainment value of each cash in and how much I marked out during each one, it would be like this:

13. Jack Swagger- None of it made any sense. He just showed up and cashed in on Jericho even though he had no idea he had taped ribs, and had no idea Edge would attack him. It’s one of the few heel-on-heel assaults I didn’t like. The Miz almost cashing in on Sheamus was much better done.

12. John Cena- The execution of the match and heel turn was terrible. Using the MitB briefcase as a plot device to turn the champion heel was a stupid idea to begin with.

11. Daniel Bryan- I will always hate the fact that the referee didn’t wait until Big Show stood up. Every Money in the Bank cash-in required the champion to be standing up and cleared to wrestle until this one. Even when Bryan beat Henry for the title, it was reversed because he wasn’t cleared. And then they do this contradictory mess. Stupid creative at it again.

10. The Miz- Whoever came up with the stupid decision to announce Miz had an anxiety attack deserved to be fired. That completely ruined the “surprise” of the cash-in. By this time, I was already sick of the “beatdown cash-ins”. They’re still going strong 4 years later, but this one was an example of the worst. Miz should have done something much more original.

9. Randy Orton- Basically the same as Del Rio’s, but no Kevin Nash, so that immediately makes it better. Triple H turning heel and helping Orton win was a much better story, but I still hate the fact it ruined the SummerSlam main event. Bryan should have beaten Orton and shocked the world with a double-win.

8. Rob Van Dam- The announcement was okay, and the match was pretty great, but the fact that he won by interference kills this for me. What’s the point of making the announcement beforehand if he’s still gonna win via shenanigans?

7. Damien Sandow- I really enjoyed the cash-in for the whole arm story. It just made sense to take down Cena after his injured arm had been through hell. I loved the whole promo and the chocolate briefcase beatdown. Obviously, I will always hate the fact that Cena won and Sandow never recovered, but at the time, I was excited for a Sandow/Cena PPV feud with Sandow eventually winning.

6. Edge (2)- I was genuinely surprised he cashed in so early, but it made total sense to cash it in before anyone from management interfered with the briefcase changing hands. Undertaker came off as a total badass and Batista was screwed again. It was great, and Edge moving to SD was the right call.

5. CM Punk (2)- I enjoyed it, but I think it was too predictable. It was the first time someone cashed in on a “new” champion and it was much better than Bryan and Orton’s cash-ins after this one. The whole “match” with Jeff was well done and made Jeff into a badass and Punk into a opportunistic douchebag.

4. Kane- Simple, but effective. No point in waiting. I loved it.

3. Dolph Ziggler- I really marked out because I couldn’t wait for Dolph to be champion. The crowd really helped make this better than what it was. I’m really bummed about how he didn’t get to be a top guy though.

2. Edge (1)- The original cash-in was very effective, but from what I remember, everybody saw it coming. It was still a great moment because it was something we weren’t used to. WWE has overused the “surprise title match” ever since, even without the briefcase like Batista facing Cena after the Chamber in 2010. The original is still fantastic (Hogan/Yoko doesn’t count).

1. CM Punk (1)- The biggest mark-out moment in a long time. I expected Punk to cash in on the ECW title or something stupid like that. I never thought WWE was going to make him the champion of Raw. But when he won, I was ecstatic, and I couldn’t wait for his big heel turn down the line against the likes of Batista and Cena. Sadly, it wasn’t to be and I had to wait a year later, but at the time, it was still a huge moment watching Punk pin Edge.

totally, totally agreed about bryan’s cash in at #11! it’s the f*cking worst, and I was super surprised (but kinda not really) when it ended up on brandon’s list as #2. that sucked because of everything that happened before it, even if some of what happened after it was cool. same about #9 and #8, as I completely agree with you.

but I’m with brandon about miz’s cash in, and in fact think it should be higher even on his list! and I’m totally confused by your #1 ranking as I also share brandon’s thoughts on how unimportant this one turned out to be, but more importantly how stupid it was executed.

#1 didn’t turn out to be important, but like I said above, I’m not taking into consideration the build-up or the aftermath. I’m ranking only the actual cash-in. When CM Punk cashed in on Edge, for a second I forgot this shit wasn’t real, and it just felt like a dream come true. I haven’t marked out like that since. All other “markout” moments that people talk about are pretty dull to me, like the End of an Era soap opera, or Rock returning and cutting telletubby jokes on John Cena, etc. Nothing has yet to compare to my favorite wrestler on the roster cashing in and winning the World title. He wasn’t pushed at all in the main event and they were underwhelmingly teasing a cash-in in on the ECW title, so we all thought he wouldn’t go anywhere, but out of nowhere, he wins the World title. That was huge.

Watching these made me again question what anyone saw in Edge. I liked him way back when he was paired with Christian, but as a solo dude, man I just couldn’t get down with him. All his Edge-named moves, his nothing special mic work, and that god-awful spear. I think that bothered me most of all.